PVL: Akari overcomes Farm Fresh, faces Galeries in quarters
Ivy Lacsina and the Akari Chargers celebrate during a win over the Farm Fresh Foxies in the PVL All-Filipino Conference.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines–Akari moved on to the quarterfinals of the PVL All-Filipino Conference after surviving Farm Fresh, 25-11, 23-25, 18-25, 25-21, 15-9, on Tuesday at PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
Ivy Lacsina plugged in 22 points made up of 21 attacks and a block as the Chargers, who snapped a two-game skid, set up a meeting with Galeries Tower in the next round.
“Yung pinagtrabahuhan namin the past few days, yung sakripisyo talaga [yung naging motivation ko],” Lacsina said. “Hindi naging madali yung before this game kasi grabe yung training namin.”
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As Mich Cobb activated her hitters with 18 excellent sets, three more Chargers became productive with Eli Soyud dropping 14 points, 10 off kills, the returning Grethcel Soltones contributed 11 points and Cams Victoria 10 points, four of which came from aces.
“Happy ako [to contribute] pero kasi kanina hindi talaga ako nag-expect na ipapasok pa ako since nung first set ang ganda talaga nung pinakita nila pero sabi naman ni coach Taka [Minowa] mag-ready lang ako,” Soltones said.
“So kanina ino-obserbahan ko sila tapos yung sa kalaban para pagpasok ko alam ko na yung gagawin ko and alam ko iinstruct sa mga kasama ko,” she added.
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The Foxies, who were ranked higher than their counterpart from the preliminary round, proved tougher to discard after Akari had its way on them in the opening frame before Farm Fresh took a 2-1 set advantage.
But Akari was determined to retake the match using the fourth set that tied the game.
After a 4-0 opening run in the final frame, the Foxies continued fighting back to a 7-all deadlock before a huge 5-1 run by Akari to pull away, 12-7. Soltones sent a cross-court hit to Rizza Cruz that she over received before Alyssa Bertolano retaliated.
A miss set by Jheck Dionela made Trisha Tubu commit an attack error to push Akari to match point before Soltones had a huge block on Tubu for the match.
Tubu paced the Foxies with a game-high 23 points while Bertolano had an all-around performance in the loss with 13 points, 11 excellent digs and the same number of excellent receptions.
Farm Fresh joined Cignal and Capital1 in Pool A of the play-in tournament that starts on Thursday at PhilSports Arena.
